When this occurs and your girlfriend continues to play the game, it will suck you back in. Over and Over and Over.

Eventually if you are really lucky (like me) they will leave you for everquest because to quote "It is what I need in my life right now" -Ady 9/2002... or to paraphrase "You don't play and all my friends are on here and when you want to do things in real life it takes me away from them and the raids and the ph4t l3wt y0."

Never. Never. Never. Get your woman involved in Everquest and if you are seriously interested in the relationship get yourself uninvolved with that game also if you can't control the amount of time you're spending in it.

Everquest is not called EverCrack without reason. It is highly addictive. I introduced my wife of nearly 20 years to the game as something that the two of us could do together from two computers in the same room. Back in our college days, we both played some RPGs, so it made sense that we might like to play Everquest together.

At first, everthing worked out fine, but then things started happening that were the beginning of her addiction. She started playing more with other people than she played with me. In retrospect, this should have been a red flag, but she seemed to enjoy herself and it didn't strike me as a problem. Over the first year, however, she played EverCrack for more than 2,000 hours.

There are lots of younger guys that play the game constantly and when my wife "hooked up" with some of them from a power guild, they were all over this flirty "real" girl who described herself as a 19 year old nanny in real life. They UBERtwinked her and then power leveled the daylights out of her. She went from level 40 to 50 in about a week of constant power leveling (PLing). I began playing more just to try to keep up, which was impossible given the number of hours she was playing and the uberpeeps that were PLing her. Not being a flirty woman, I was definitely at a disadvantage. Soon, playing with me was not a challenge and I was not welcome in her circle of EverCrack friends because I could not play enough to be powerful enough to adventure with them.

When she first started playing, she kept her real identity private, but before too long her EverCrack guild members knew more about her life than I did. She started exchanging email with them and deleting all inbound and outbound email automatically to hide her activity. I noticed the change in her email retention, but I trusted her completely. It didn't register that she was getting emotionally involved with the men with whom she played. As I did begin to express concern that she was giving these men playing EverCrack what I was increasingly lacking and wanting most, her attention, she reaasured me that I was being silly, distracted my concerns with a strengthened interest in sex (which, of course, I didn't mind), and increasing accused me of trying to control her when I wanted her not to play so much. This was the first time in over 20 years that we were together that I had any feelings of jealousy. This continued right up to the point our marriage ended.

Yes, I was the victim of an EverCrack induced divorce. At the coaxing of her EverCrack friends, it became a very nasty divorce where she lied and used the kids to maximize her post-divorce benefits.

She was seduced on-line by the men she met playing EverQuest, leading to our separation. I thought we had a very strong marriage. Our friends were floored by our divorce. A year after we were separated, she testified in divorce court that no fewer than five men had flown from every part of the country to spend weekends or vacations with her. That's when she committed adultery. She met all five playing EverCrack.

It seems clear, in retrospect, based on her behavior and unfolding events that she was involved in cybersex with them for months leading up to our separation. She also made frequent trips to see them starting immediately after our separation, but the damage was done through emotional involvement months before.

EverCrack is still her addiction and now a woman that she met playing EverCrack has moved in with her and our two children, who now both play. I have not played since the day of our separation and the game is not allowed in my house. The kids understand this and don't seem to mind. They know how EverCrack contributed to the destruction of our family. In this state and county, unless a mother is shown to be incompetent, she will gain primary custody of children in a divorce 99 times out of a 100. She is a kindergarten teacher with a degree in early childhood education, so showing that she was a bad mother was extremely unlikely. The court doesn't care about fault when it comes to child custody. My attorney wisely advised that I not put myself or the kids through the pain of an attempt to gain custody. Now I monitor the children's well being as best I can from my apartment four blocks away, hoping they will not pay a steeper price in the future than they have already paid due to EverCrack addiction.

It seems that everyone she knows now is related to her EverCrack habit. A permanent injunction placed "due to her conduct" keeps her out of my life today. No relationship is perfect and there were other factors that led to this horrible end, but there is no question in my mind, or to those that knew us, that EverCrack was the catalyst for the destruction of our family. I would have literally done anything to save our family, but I couldn't compete against her EverCrack habit, her maxed-out ubershaman, and her seduction by the men she met playing EverCrack.